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Microsoft DirectX

The latest Microsoft Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 9926 comes with the next iteration of Microsoft's gaming and multimedia API's DirectX 12. While DirectX 12 is now being shipped with Windows 10 Technical Preview builds, to experience it's visual and performance gains the graphic cards drivers and apps needs to be updated to make use of the new API, which should take some time to start appearing.

AMD amazed everybody by saying there will be no DirectX 12, and now Microsoft has disappointed users on older Windows version by making DirectX 11.2 EXCLUSIVE to Windows 8.1 and next-generation consoles. Making users on older Windows version feel more miserable, the new update features the ability to allow a game use both system RAM and graphics RAM to store textures, which will enable DirectX 11.2 games to vastly improve the resolution of textures displayed in-game.

Micrsoft DirectX has been always the technology driving graphic card sales, but this might change soon. Back in January Microsoft sent a letter to its MVPs saying "DirectX is no longer evolving as a technology. Given the status within each technology, further value and engagement cannot be offered to the MVP community." However, this was later clarified with an official announcement that XNA was being discontinued not DirectX.

Now, adding more support to this suggestion, AMD's Vice President of Global Channel Sales - Roy Taylor has said there will be no DirectX12 at any time in the future during an interview given to a German magazine.

Microsoft DirectX is the technology which powers graphical aspects of the Windows operating system, not updating DirectX on older operating-system versions is a known Microsoft tactic to push sales of newer products as users must upgrade their operating-systems in order to play newer games coded in updated DirectX framework. We have seen the same with Windows XP and DirectX 11 and this is what will be the case with Windows 8 and DirectX 11.1 update.

However, this time around Microsoft has decided to backport few enhancements in DirectX 11.1 to Windows 7. After, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 this is some exciting news for Windows 7 users who are satisfied with their operating-system and do not want an upgrade to Windows 8 just to get much needed security and functionality upgrades.

While Windows 7 comes with DirectX 11 Microsoft has decided not to offer this upgrade to Windows XP users. Fake bundles of DirectX 11 for Windows XP also took advantage of the situation to spread malware - Various genuine efforts also tried making a Windows XP port of DirectX 10 but are not being actively developed anymore.

To bring some relief to Windows XP users, Microsoft has now released an update to DirectX® End-User Runtime after a long time. This new release features updates to 9.0c and previous versions pushing the build version to 9.29.1973 offering better multimedia and gaming experience on users PC.

If you follow technology news you should have got surprised reading the article title because there is no official DirectX 11 for Windows XP or Vista as of now, Microsoft DirectX 11 (6.01.7000.0000) will be made available on Windows 7 and Windows Vista when officially released in coming months, but virus creators have hoped onto the opportunity and started taking advantage of gamers curiosity to install the latest version of DirectX by posting fake trojan infected DirectX 11 links on blogs and forums, these so called DirectX 11 For Windows XP and Vista installer contained Trojans created in perl scripts which got detected by only three lesser known anti-virus scanners on VirusTotal out of total 39.

Microsoft Windows DirectX 10 features heavily improved 3D rendering capabilities and several new features to deliver a new generation of visual effects with significantly improved game and 3-D application performance, Sadly, DirectX 10 is officially available for Windows Vista only and Microsoft has no plans to release DirectX 10 for Windows XP, However, guys at "Falling Leaf Systems" ported DirectX 10 on Windows XP starting the project named "Alky" with the aim to provide compatibility libraries for making DirectX 10 work on Windows XP with full support for application development API's, the Alky project is now closed but the source-code is made open-source for further development by community.

The free DirectX 10 compatibility libraries provided by Alky project allow's developers to create DirectX 10 powered games and applications on platforms other than Windows Vista using Microsoft DirectX 10 SDK and API's, Windows XP users on forums and blogs are reporting successfully using Alky's DirectX 10 for Windows XP to port and play Directx 10 only games like Halo 2 and Shadowrun on Windows XP.

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